The great white hope

[innsaneink]

Neil Henry

Raiders fans dumped on Matt Elliott year after year after year, it wasnt the players, it was the coach, his selections, his recruiting, his game plans.

Neil Henry would prove them right.

Lets have a looksee hmmm...

Matt Elliott

2002 10 wins and semis spot
2003 16 wins and semis spot
2004 11 wins and semis spot
2005 9 wins, 2nd last
2006 13 wins and semis spot

Neil Henry

2007 9 wins 2nd last.

Uh oh.

Go Matt...you go

 

[Azkatro]

Matt Elliott had cattle like Schifcofske, Croker, Jason Smith and Simon Woolford to help steer the ship. I think if the Raiders had a few experienced heads like that this year they would have been at least 8th.

 

[Inferno]

And how did Matt Elliot go this year with a roster including Rooney, Wesser, Gower, Priddis, Pritchard and Lewis?

 

[Tekken Lord]

But the Panthers got the spoon!!!!!

 

[Y2Eel]

And how did Matt Elliot go this year with a roster including Rooney, Wesser, Gower, Priddis, Pritchard and Lewis?

Well seieing as most of those players missed a big chunk of the season i guess it was ok.. Gave a few rookies a chance and they all went great..

Big improvement for the pennies next season...(thats if they can find a half)

 

[Tekken Lord]

Orginally Posted by Inferno
And how did Matt Elliot go this year with a roster including Rooney, Wesser, Gower, Priddis, Pritchard and Lewis?

All overrated hacks, they were good for one year 2003. Ever since they have been sh*t house, their all living off the glory of 2003, as you can see they're wooden spoon material.

 

[Bobby DIGital]

Ink it's funny how you automatically turn in our direction and start making Raider bashing threads now that your season is over too.

Seriously if I was you I'd be more worried about what your side dished up in the last 10 mins on friday night. With your season on the line, you capitulated in a very short space of time. 10 mins and your season was done. Boom, season gone right before your eyes. You saved the Knights from the spoon.

You should be in mourning. I guess this is your lil way of doing that.

It's true we've had a disappointing season obviously. Our away form still being the root of the problem. It looks like that has carried over from the Elliott days. Once we get that out of our system, we'll be a pretty good team. I also feel we were dudded too many times by the video ref this year, and that broke the guys spirit. You could see that in Round 17 Vs the Dragons. We'd been screwed out of 3 wins by video ref calls for 3 weeks straight before that. We copped another dud video ref call early in that game, and the guys just mentally fell to pieces. The Dragons put 58 on us in the end. Those 4 losses in a row killed our season. We need to be mentally stronger next year and overcome the bad calls. Much like the Warriors have done this season. Carney being suspended for his indiscretion was tough also. To lose your best player under those circumstances is extremley hard to deal with. We also had the same ol injury problems.

Anyway it was a terrible season. As a Raiders fan I'm putting it behind me right now. I woke up this morning feeling like the nightmare's over. Bring on 2008.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Kiwis play in Wellington now. At least the Kiwi Tigers players can rest up a bit Ink.

 

[Inferno]

Well seieing as most of those players missed a big chunk of the season i guess it was ok.. Gave a few rookies a chance and they all went great..

Big improvement for the pennies next season...(thats if they can find a half)

Priddis played 17 games and was dumped to PL
Lewis played 20 games
Gower played 23 games
Pritchard played 22
Wesser played 14
Rooney played 8.

Only Rooney and Wesser were missing for extended periods.

 

[Munky]

And how did Matt Elliot go this year with a roster including Rooney, Wesser, Gower, Priddis, Pritchard and Lewis?

Rooney - has become absoute crap. Butchered opportunity after opportunity last night. He never had great pace but had an awesome right arm fend to make up for it. It seems to have dissapeared with any appearance of being first grade quality.

Wesser - Has played one exceptional season and two goodish ones. The rest have been diabolical.

Gower - No good since 2004.

Priddis - A penalty giving grub who only started playing well after his return from PL.

Pritchard - Lazy and inconsistent.

Lewis - A great winger but average centre and five-eighth.

Don't get me wrong I think Elliots been terrible but the cattle have been ordinary since 2004.

He did continually pick nuffies like Smith and O'Halloran and I can't find any reason for it. He blooded rookies and they've played well. I don't understand how a team who dominated the lower grades can finish last. Then again we refused to promote players because they wanted them available for the finals since it was essential for their development (according to Panthers Interactive.)

 

[Butters]

Rooney - has become absoute crap. Butchered opportunity after opportunity last night. He never had great pace but had an awesome right arm fend to make up for it. It seems to have dissapeared with any appearance of being first grade quality.

Rooney was going good at the start of the season before he got injured

 

[Munky]

Rooney was going good at the start of the season before he got injured

Not really, he was playing like Nathan Smith. Plenty of effort but just doesn't have the quality any more.

Rooney in space is horrific to watch, you just know it's going no where.

 

[woodyk2]

How many weeks was Waterhouse out for? A player who set the world on fire then kinda disapeared off the radar.

 

[Butters]

How many weeks was Waterhouse out for? A player who set the world on fire then kinda disapeared off the radar.

He got injured against the broncos in round 3? (pretty sure it was round 3) And he just returned a few weeks ago im pretty sure

 

[woodyk2]

He got injured against the broncos in round 3? (pretty sure it was round 3) And he just returned a few weeks ago im pretty sure[/quote

Cheers. a year or so ago i thought he was the next big thing...seems to be going through the motions now. Perhaps injury gives that impression. Rooney is similar.

 

[innsaneink]

Ink it's funny how you automatically turn in our direction and start making Raider bashing threads now that your season is over too.

Seriously if I was you I'd be more worried about what your side dished up in the last 10 mins on friday night. With your season on the line, you capitulated in a very short space of time. 10 mins and your season was done. Boom, season gone right before your eyes. You saved the Knights from the spoon.

You should be in mourning. I guess this is your lil way of doing that.

It's true we've had a disappointing season obviously. Our away form still being the root of the problem. It looks like that has carried over from the Elliott days. Once we get that out of our system, we'll be a pretty good team. I also feel we were dudded too many times by the video ref this year, and that broke the guys spirit. You could see that in Round 17 Vs the Dragons. We'd been screwed out of 3 wins by video ref calls for 3 weeks straight before that. We copped another dud video ref call early in that game, and the guys just mentally fell to pieces. The Dragons put 58 on us in the end. Those 4 losses in a row killed our season. We need to be mentally stronger next year and overcome the bad calls. Much like the Warriors have done this season. Carney being suspended for his indiscretion was tough also. To lose your best player under those circumstances is extremley hard to deal with. We also had the same ol injury problems.

Anyway it was a terrible season. As a Raiders fan I'm putting it behind me right now. I woke up this morning feeling like the nightmare's over. Bring on 2008.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Kiwis play in Wellington now. At least the Kiwi Tigers players can rest up a bit Ink.

You may call it raider bashing, i call it an opinion...yes there are mitigating circumstances with penrith and canberra wwhen we dig deeper...but its only discussion.
And yes, youre right....it takes my mind off my own pathetic team if only for a short while.

Facts are...youve gone backwards from last year...thats all I'm pointing out.

 

[greenhat]

A few more relevant points:

- Its Neil Henry's first year as a first grade coach, so its reasonable to think he might get better.

Also, coaching abilitiy aside, Neil Henry is a Canberra native who clearly wants to be coaching the raiders, and has made an effort to instill some pride in the players about representing this city and this club.
I think one of the things that really pissed off Canberra fans about Elliot was that he obviously didn't think much of Canberra itself. He eventually left at the first opportunity he got, which he explained by saying he didn't want his kids growing up in Canberra. (no beach)

 

[Mal Meninga]

Henry is actually from Perth but he coached the lower grades at Canberra which is half the reason why he got the gig - He knew the juniors coming through.

I'm not too impressed by him but it didn't help that Carney was out for 2 months.

 

[Paullyboy]

Facts are...youve gone backwards from last year...thats all I'm pointing out.

Haha good old ink, debating something with you is like playing tennis against a duck. It feels good to win, but at the end of the day you are playing against something that is clearly not much chop.

We lost over 1000 games of first grade experience at the end of 2006, of course when we have gone backwards.

We were tipped to come dead last, with pretty much every journo/expert adamant that the 07 Raiders roster would be lucky to win a game. Use your brain before embarrasing yourself again you tit.

 

[t-ba]

This is a pretty hilarious premise for a thread.

 

[kooriguy]

i think having our pack only play a handfull of games together hurt (tony puletua, pritchard, waterhouse, rodney, clinton all had spells on the sideline) as did wesser's injury, sammut is a liability at fullback, as was everyone else we played there in wesser's absence.

there have been some pleasing signs with the emergence of jennings and blair 2 real quality centres of the future.